


what a relief

by tinygumdrops (curryramyeon)



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: M/M, No Strings Attached, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 19:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14432634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curryramyeon/pseuds/tinygumdrops
Summary: Seongwu never stays for breakfast.





	what a relief

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much to s for the speedy beta! and for answering all my dumb questions. and for stringing me along in this fandom. basically everything. you rock my world, you.
> 
> hope you'll all enjoy!

 

~O~

“How long has it been?”

Seongwu bends over to pick his jeans that he had haphazardly thrown over a nearby footstool. The belt buckle hits his finger, and the jolt of pain makes him hiss. “What?” he mumbles absently.

“How long?” Daniel says.

Seongwu can’t see him well in this shade of darkness. When he narrows his eyes, he can now make out enough to know that Daniel has his back slanted against the headboard, head tilted in an awkward angle. That posture will kill his back in the morning, Seongwu’s sure.

It takes a few seconds for Seongwu to process the question. “A month, I think,” Seongwu answers.

“Oh,” Daniel says quietly. “I didn’t realize…”

“Is there a problem, Daniel-ssi?”

Daniel shakes his head. “Nothing, of course. It’s just that—wow. Time flies really fast.” He chuckles.

Seongwu doesn’t get what he means by that. “Yeah,” he says instead, suddenly recalling the first night in that secluded bar in Wangsong-ro. Seongwu had been flicking the edge of the plate filled with peanuts when Daniel sat two barstools away from him. After a while, he caught Seongwu’s eye and smiled. The guy had retainers on his teeth, back then.

Seongwu looked him up and down, tilted his head towards the bathrooms.

And that was it.   

Seongwu doesn’t really keep track of the first times of all the people he sleeps with. He just remembers, vividly.

He puts on his jeans and buttons his shirt. “See you around then.”

Daniel says, smile warm and voice soft, “See you, Seongwu-ssi.”

 

~O~

 

It takes a lot longer for Daniel to clean up this time, and Seongwu contemplates whether it’s alright to make a run for it. He wonders if it’d offend Daniel greatly if he does, but he eventually decides that it’s not important. Seongwu prefers following protocol, and they’ve both gotten their fill tonight, anyway.

So when Daniel comes out of the shower, smelling like soap and cherries, Seongwu is already halfway dressed, halfway towards the exit.

Seongwu gulps, feeling his neck heat up. “Hope you had a good time,” he says, caught.

One end of Daniel’s lip twitches, perhaps in amusement. “Yeah, of course,” he says. His hair is still soaking wet, making tiny puddles on the bedroom floor.

Seongwu locks the door from behind him. “Bye,” he whispers to the keyhole.

 

~O~

 

Daniel is always quiet when he comes. There’s just this tiny slither of a moan that escapes from his throat every time, and his eyes automatically flutter close, like he’s afraid of letting a wisp of his feelings out. Seongwu doesn’t get that a lot. Most of his lovers are content with making their pleasure known all throughout the neighborhood, and they always encourage Seongwu to whisper a few obscene words to their ears. It’s funny and fun, and Seongwu is all about those things.  

Kang Daniel is, Seongwu finds, just a tiny bit weird. It’s a good thing he’s pretty into that too.

It’s even stranger when, tonight, Seongwu had reached out and brushed the veins protruding on Daniel’s neck, the man yelped, tightening around Seongwu without warning and punching an orgasm out of him.   

Now, they’re lying on Daniel’s queen, chests heaving almost in sync _. One minute_ , Seongwu thinks. One minute, and he’ll clean himself up and go.

“Hey.”

“Mmm?”

“How many people do you do this with?” Daniel asks.

Seongwu cranes his neck to look at him. “I’m clean, if that’s what you wanted to know,” he says.

Daniel nods, but he doesn’t seem satisfied with that answer.  

“Three,” Seongwu says after a minute. “Not including you.”

“Ahh.” Daniel cracks a smile. “Should’ve known you’d be popular.”

Seongwu lets out a snort. “Of course I am,” he says. “But… yeah. Thanks.”

Daniel’s smile grows wider. He moves to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t mean to pry,” he mumbles. “Just curious. I’ve only had sex like this with one other person before you.” He scratches his chin absently. “Not that I’m doing it with him anymore. It’s just you, for now.”

Seongwu quirks an eyebrow. “‘ _Like this_ ’?” he says.

“Like this.” Daniel makes a circling gesture at the space between them. “The kind where I don’t have to worry about what movie I’d have to pull out of Netflix for us to watch in the living room,” he adds, shrugging. “You know. As a lead-up.”

“Ahh.” Seongwu nods. _How long had that lasted?_ he wants to ask, but that might be stepping out of bounds. He’s not going to start anything he can’t finish.

It’s so hot under the covers. Seongwu sits up, the blanket riding down to his stomach. Daniel stays where he is, gaze still ahead.

 _Maybe one more minute,_ Seongwu decides _._ “I’ll be busy with work next week,” he says. “Working an extra shift.”

“Alright.” Daniel doesn’t ask him about work, or when he will be available next. He just says, “Don’t wear yourself out so much, Seongwu-ssi.”

Seongwu licks his lips. “You bet I won’t. I have you for that, haven’t I?”

Daniel laughs, always on the ready. Seongwu appreciates that, the same way he appreciates everything else about their arrangement: discreetly, and without conditions.

Seongwu’s minute and an extra is up. He slides out of the bed and searches for his socks. He had tossed them by the foot of the couch along with his dress shirt, probably.

He then finds them nestled on top of Daniel’s black denim jeans. As he puts on his baseball cap, he fishes them out using his big toe.

He mumbles a quick goodbye, and Daniel gives him a sleepy, contented hum in reply.

~O~

Seongwu rides a bike to almost everywhere he goes. When he was a little, he used to get into accidents whenever he does, a couple of minor and major injuries here and there. Perhaps it took a lot more practice on his part than it’d normally take for a regular kid, but he guesses that’s just the way his life works, mostly.  

The candy shop he works part-time in is really close to Hongik University. It’s a daily challenge to get there, with the crazy number of students coming in and out of campus and crowding the sidewalks, eventually spilling to the streets. Especially at this hour, there’s also a lot of people heading to nearby restaurants and bars.

Seongwu dismounts and makes headway for north. He runs a hand through his hair, feeling a little suffocated as two people bump onto his elbows simultaneously.

After locking his bike in front of the candy store, there’s a light tap on his shoulder.

“Hey, sir? Excuse me?” A girl a foot shorter than Seongwu says. She holds out her digital camera. “Can you…” She gestures towards the cherry blossom, and a man standing directly underneath the branches.

“Uhh. Yeah, sure.” Seongwu fumbles with the buttons as the girl glides back to her boyfriend.

A flash, and Seongwu peers down at the screen. They look happy, and the man has his lips pressed against the girl’s cheek. Behind them, the pink petals fall. It’s a good photo.

“Just got married,” the man says.

Seongwu takes in their matching ringed fingers and says with the widest grin he can muster, “Congratulations!”

“Thanks, kid,” the man says as he whisks his wife away. “Great shot.”

Seongwu ducks his head, pushing the handles on the glass doors with more force than usual, and forges on.

 

 

…

 

 

Seongwu’s subjecting himself to the familiar kind of ass-kissing with an annoying customer who keeps changing his mind when Daniel suddenly appears out of nowhere.

“No, I want gumballs. Strawberry-flavored ones,” the man with a beer belly says, just as soon as Seongwu tagged the sweet and sour gummy worms on the scale. “G-U-M-B-A-L-L-S.”

Seongwu can feel Daniel’s steely gaze on his face. “Okay, sir. Just a moment,” he forces himself to respond.

When the man leaves, Daniel stops pretending that he’s painstakingly deciding over which type of candy cane to buy and comes over the counter with a pack of jellies in hand.

“The world is full of sick people,” Daniel says conversationally.

Seongwu smoothes out his apron and scans the pack. “All in a day’s work,” he responds, just as light and friendly.

Daniel nods. “It’s a tactic to get free stuff, isn’t it?”

“Wow, I'm surprised you can tell. Wait. Don’t tell me. You do that too, don’t you?” Seongwu makes a show of narrowing his eyes. “Poor, faint-hearted lunch ladies wouldn’t have known what hit ‘em.”

Daniel places a hand to his chest, inadvertently drawing Seongwu’s attention there for a moment. “I’m hurt,” he says. “I’m an honorable guy, Seongwu-ssi.”

“The things you do at night don’t really spell honorable, Kang Daniel-ssi” is what Seongwu says before he can stop himself.

Thankfully, Daniel only grins. “Right back at ya, Ong Seongwu-ssi.”

The skin on Seongwu’s cheeks tingle, a telltale of something. He needs to decide or else.

Taking the safer route, he places the jellies in a paper bag it doesn’t really need and hands it to Daniel. “Have a great night!”

Daniel opens his mouth, before closing it again and shaking his head, like he just remembered that there’s something he shouldn’t say. “See you, Seongwu-ssi.”

Seongwu scratches the shell of his ear. “See you,” he says, watching Daniel’s back as he goes.

 

 

~O~

 

 

They don’t see each other again until it’s late November, on the day when the dew on the window turns into a thin sheen of frost when noon comes. Seongwu makes sure that it’s Daniel calling him, and not some stranger who stole the guy’s phone and is posing as him, itching for a mid-day fuck (it has happened before).

There's no prelude, no catch-ups. It's a good thing Daniel seems like a busy guy as Seongwu is.

Kissing Daniel is like kissing the seasons. Daniel’s hands are cold, but his lips and breath are scorching hot, and his chest, when Seongwu runs his fingers on it, is a balmy kind of warm. His hair smells strangely sweet.

Tonight, the intensity changes too, without warning—when Daniel skims his teeth on Seongwu’s lower lip, it’s appraising one moment, and then fierce and biting and urgent. It makes Seongwu wonder and keeps him on his toes.

In the semi-dark, Seongwu can see Daniel straining. If he stares long enough, he can see how Daniel’s eyes look glassy at just the right angle, with the moonlight hitting the side of his face. Without thinking, he reaches out for Daniel’s nape and squeezes.

“Hey,” Seongwu tells him. “Let go. Alright?”

To their surprise, Daniel comes like a shot. The liquid leaks out of the condom as soon as he takes it out.

Seongwu is nowhere near finished, but Daniel makes quick work with his hands, mouth and tongue. After a few minutes, they’re lying side by side, sweating profusely despite the cold. They stare up at the ceiling, silently, lost in their own thoughts. Seongwu can tell that Daniel is afraid. They both are.

“Seongwu-ssi,” Daniel starts. “I’m sor—"

“Hey—no.” Seongwu shuts his eyes tight. “No, jeez. Stop. You’re not allowed to be like that, okay?”

“Okay.”

A warm, ache-y feeling settles in Seongwu’s gut, and he makes his first mistake of many: “I’m here, you know?” he whispers.

Daniel remains quiet, but the rhythm of his chest rising and falling is steady, and Seongwu knows he’s been heard. He trusts that Daniel believes him, even when he packs his things and says soon after, “Hey. I have to go.”

Daniel doesn’t respond again. But Seongwu, perhaps rather stupidly, trusts him. He closes the door and stalks off to the busy streets.

 

~O~

 

This is how Seongwu knows he’s in trouble:

He’s at work—it’s a different one; he keeps track of inventory in a convenience store across the street from the candy store that’s closed down—when he gets a call.

“Hi.” It’s Daniel. “Seongwu-ssi?”

“Yeah,” Seongwu answers once he gets his bearings. “Yeah, it’s me. Everything okay over there?”

“Oh yeah, everything’s fine,” Daniel says. His voice sounds strange, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“That’s good.” Seongwu clears the boxes on the floor, shoving them aside with his foot. “Why’d you call?”

“Nothing. It’s, um…”

“Yeah?”

“I just came back from a trip to Ocean World.”

“Oh, wow. That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah. I saw a seal. It was flapping its flippers like mad.” Daniel lets out a breathy chuckle. “And, well. I just thought of you.”

“Ahh, really?” Seongwu responds with a laugh of his own, heart in his throat. “Huh. I’m curious about how your mind came up with that connection. Care to enlighten me?”

“It looked ridiculous, so.”

“ _You_ ,” Seongwu begins, hoisting up the boxes to the shelves. "Are ridiculous. Calling in at four in the morning to make some random jibe about my arms or whatever—"

“I wasn’t expecting you to pick up,” Daniel says. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

Seongwu bites his lip. “Well, I’m not.”

“Guess you aren’t,” Daniel agrees.

Seongwu goes back to the counter, plonking himself down on the metal stool. He looks around. Nobody’s here, and there probably won’t be a single soul that’ll come for another thirty minutes.   

“So,” Seongwu says, whirling himself around with the stool. “Tell me more about that fucking seal.”

 

~O~

 

They talk about nothing, and Seongwu can’t pinpoint the exact time something changed, but there’s that dark, ominous feeling like he’s chasing after the clock, like there’s a knife held against his heart.

“So,” Daniel says when he opens the door for Seongwu. “You want to do it now or later?”

Before, there used to be no questions. For the past two months, Seongwu’s been given an option. “Let’s do it now,” he says, by means of smothering the twinge in his chest.

“Okay.”

The sex is also different. Everything is unnervingly gentle now, though he still braces himself by Daniel’s shoulders as the other man entered him, out of habit. Daniel’s breaths against his ear are uneven, yet soft. His touches are barely there, but the sensation lingers, making Seongwu’s insides quake.

When Daniel comes, Seongwu is left with no other choice but to follow. He sees stars, and then he’s floating. Pleasure seeps to his bones and stays.

Daniel's body is a furnace. It's cold, making Seongwu stay in Daniel's bed for a few more minutes.

He then coughs after they’ve cleaned themselves up. “Let’s get a snack,” Seongwu decides, body tingling in a way he needs to forget. “I’ll treat you.”

They walk to the nearest waffle place. They order two sets of the sweetest ones around. Daniel gets coffee and Seongwu some OJ, and they talk about the weather.

 

 

~O~

 

 

One day in August, it’s too hot out to do much of anything outside, so Seongwu invites Daniel to his place.

“Happy birthday,” Daniel says when Seongwu opens the door. He has a box of donuts on one hand and a seal plushie under his other arm.

Seongwu stares at him. “I don’t remember telling you that,” he says slowly.

Daniel throws him an impish grin before bouncing off to the mahogany side table at the farthest corner of the living room. “My generation has internet,” he says.

Right. Seongwu flushes. He puts the box of donuts aside on the nearby coffee table. They’ll have them later as a snack, he supposes. “Thanks, Daniel.” He doesn’t know where to put the plushie, so he props it against the lone pillow on his couch.

“Sure, sure,” Daniel says absently, crouching low to get a good look of all the framed pictures on the tabletop.

Seongwu stays behind him, studying the other man’s shoulders. He wonders what Daniel sees, but he doesn’t have to guess for too long.

“She’s pretty,” Daniel says, staring at the particular picture of Seongwu with a smiling girl. It’s tiny, almost hidden behind the gigantic pictures of Seongwu’s family and friends. Daniel takes the picture frame gingerly in his hands. “Were you married?” he asks.

 _I thought you’d change your mind about me,_ a distant voice whispers to Seongwu’s ear, and his mind instinctively washes out the face that comes with it. _I figured that at some point, you’d realize I’m not the one you want, and then you’d stop feeling that way, and I don’t have to pretend that…_

“Not really,” Seongwu says with a smile. “Things just—fall apart. You know?”

Daniel looks at him, a contemplative expression on his face. Seongwu slowly pries off the frame from Daniel’s fingers and places it all the way at the back, where it belongs.

He then elbows Daniel at the stomach and points to his jeans. “My dick is down here, Private.”

“Oh.” Daniel blinks.

Seongwu raises an eyebrow.

It’s a relief that Daniel’s a good study—he kneels and mumbles “Happy birthday” to Seongwu’s crotch.

Seongwu bursts into laughter.

They’re on each other in seconds.

 

…

 

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

Seongwu peers at him, notices the gooseflesh on Daniel’s upper arm. He flings the sheets to cover the other boy. “What is it that you want to do?” he says.

“I want to be able to live alone” is Daniel’s reply.

Seongwu blinks. Daniel’s flat is one of the emptiest ones he’s ever been to in his life; he has no idea how a person could make it even emptier.

“I mean,” Daniel says. “I want to be capable of living by myself. You know. With no one’s help at all.”

“Ahh,” Seongwu says. For once, he can think of no reply.

“How about you, Seongwu-ssi? What do you want to do?”

“Die.” Seongwu laughs when Daniel lightly punches him on the shoulder. “Same as you, I guess. I’ve roomed with a broker once, and his loan shark friend came to our apartment a few times a month. He sometimes told me stuff he does. Have you ever been chased by a loan shark before? Nasty.”

Daniel nods. “Insurance guys are awful too.”

“Definitely.”

There’s silence, followed by a muted snicker from beside Seongwu. 

“But I don’t think I’d be able to,” Daniel says, voice soft and careful, like a confession. “Live on my own. I’d always want someone by my side. Maybe.”

Seongwu gets that. After all, he really didn’t want to be alone for his birthday. “Yeah,” he whispers back.

 

 

~O~

 

 

Daniel is balls deep inside Seongwu when Daniel suddenly says, “I graduated today.”

“Huh?” Seongwu grits out after a few seconds. “What?”

“Graduation.”

“What?”

“I graduated today.”

Seongwu’s mouth forms an ‘o’. He only gets the implication of that when, after he comes, he says the words in his head, turns them over repeatedly. And then, “From college, right? Please tell me you were a college student.”

Daniel laughs out loud. “Don’t freak out,” he says, starkly amused. “We met in a bar, remember?”

“You could’ve gotten a fake!” Seongwu exclaims. Jesus, he could’ve been fucking a teeny. An incredibly hot, well-endowed one. But regardless.

Daniel laughs again. “I go to Hongik. I mean, I used to. For Business Ad.”

That explains the run-in at the candy store. Seongwu sighs in relief. “Oh. Well, congratulations, I guess?” He curses. “You know, I could’ve gotten you a cake or something if you just told me earlier.”

Daniel ducks his head, but Seongwu sees a flash of a smile before it’s hidden away. “What kind of cake would you’ve given me?” His ears are turning pink.

“I don’t know. What would you like?”

“I’d eat anything. I’m not really picky.”

Seongwu snorts. “I don’t believe that. You have a favorite, don’t you? The thing you instantly go for whenever you buy something. Everyone’s got a favorite. So—” He lightly flicks Daniel’s temple, “You need to think of something.”

Daniel has his eyebrows knit in concentration, perhaps flipping through a mental catalogue of all the cakes he’s ever eaten. _What an obedient kid,_ Seongwu thinks helplessly as he bites back a smile.

“I'd like something sweet,” Daniel decides finally.

“Tons of cakes are sweet,” Seongwu says patiently. “How sweet?”

Daniel starts playing with Seongwu’s fingers. “Very.”

“Hmm. Red velvet cakes are overrated,” Seongwu muses. “Cheesecakes are nice… but maybe not sweet enough for you. Oh—chocolate? You like chocolate, right?” There’s a bowl of chocolate-flavored candies on the night stand, along with a half-empty pack of jelly and gummy bears.   

Daniel chuckles. “Yeah.” He squeezes Seongwu’s hand.

“Is that your favorite?”

“I think so.” He pauses, and with even more conviction, he adds, “It is.”

Seongwu’s grin turns smug. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He taps his foot on Daniel’s shin rhythmically, following a barely remembered cadence of a song in his head. “Welcome to the world of the unemployed, Kang Daniel-ssi. Just want to break it to ya that not a lot of people need you on the other side of the fence.”

“Hmm.” Daniel shifts closer. “Not scared. You’ll be there to ease the transition.” He wraps his arms around Seongwu’s waist, locking the older boy in.

Seongwu laughs quietly. “You sound so sure,” he mumbles, hiding his face at the crook of Daniel’s shoulder. “Anyway. Congratulations, again. I’m happy for you.”

Daniel holds Seongwu tighter.

 

~O~

 

 

Early morning, there’s an envelope chucked in from the slit of the door to Seongwu’s apartment. It’s his phone bill, and his eyes grow wide when he takes in how much he has to pay for this month.

 _How long?_ he wonders as he flips open the lid of a tin he keeps under his bed. He’s strapped for cash. His phone bill has been going up at an exponential rate. Jeez. What in the world is he doing?

How long has this been going on? How long has it taken for Seongwu to notice?

As usual, Seongwu’s life makes no sense.

 

…

 

 

Seongwu decides to break it to him after they’ve had three rounds and they’re done for the night, which seems a reasonable time to say things.

“We’ve been talking a lot,” Seongwu begins as he picks up his clothes.

Daniel turns to look at him. “Talking?”

Seongwu clarifies, “Yeah. On the phone. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“My bill’s imploding.”

“Oh.”

“So, um.” Seongwu shrugs, trying his best not to sound annoyed. “I think we’ve got to stop. The talking thing.”

Daniel sits up straighter on his bed. “Alright, then.”

Seongwu inwardly sighs in relief. He gets dressed and aims for the door. “Thanks for understanding. See you whenever then.”

“We’ll just have to see each other more, right?”

Seongwu stops, his hand gripping the doorknob tightly in surprise. He opens the door. “We can text,” Seongwu says lamely.

“Yeah,” Daniel says. “That too.”

 _Jeez,_ Seongwu thinks, heart thumping, stupidly enough. What the hell are they doing? What the hell is _he_ doing?

Daniel looks blissed out, a soft afterglow from the mindless sex. And comfortable, which isn’t strange. He’s safely on his own bed after all.

Daniel’s eyes slowly blink at him, like a cat’s. Waiting for his answer.

Seriously. What the hell?

“Okay,” Seongwu gives in.

 

~O~

 

 

The suit is stifling under this heat. The centralized air-conditioning broke down two days ago, and the management told him that it proved to be a nightmare to fix. “I hope this will only be conceived as a slight inconvenience,” the woman on the counter said, sheepish.

Seongwu’s sweating buckets by the time he finishes uttering his prayers. He bows low, his lips almost touching the wooden floorboards. When he looks up, his mother’s portrait is smiling back at him serenely, just as she’s always had, back in the day.

“I must’ve saved a country in my past life to end up having such a wonderful son,” she once said, hugging Seongwu so tight his chest hurt. It was 3 am, a Sunday, and they were the only ones awake in the household. Seongwu had heard her coughing fits all the way from his room, and he knocked on her door and tried his best to make her feel better.

Seongwu can almost feel the familiar pressure of his mother’s hand carding through his hair. “Always be good, Seongwu-yah,” she told him with a smile.

 _Be happy_. That was his mother’s motto. _To navigate through life, I will live happily and kindly_. It was just like that, he remembers. Straightforward. Easy.

Seongwu envies her, somewhat. She always made things look simple. Even death.

He dusts off his knees and takes out a scrap of paper from his breast pocket. He slips it beneath the plate of _jeok_ he hastily bought from a downtown stall. 

“I got a gig,” Seongwu says out loud. “It’s in a bar in Hongdae. I know you don’t like bars but… I’ll be singing, like you did. I was hoping I could get some advice. I mean, Father’s far away, and he has no idea how you do it so I couldn’t ask—but I’m your son, right? Maybe it would come naturally…”

He bites his lower lip, letting the silence blanket him for a while. The scent of incense fills his nostrils, his lungs.

He exhales loudly.  “You always seemed to enjoy it. So. I’m thinking, you know. Maybe I’d love it as well.”

Singing doesn’t really come naturally to him. He can tell he’s not that good, and that he got offered the job because he has, overall, a pretty face to look at. But modeling isn’t paying as well anymore, and he needs something else to do at night, when he’s not mindlessly surfing the net for funny goat videos or waiting for a text to come.

He’s got a nice enough voice, besides. He’s got a good sense of rhythm and tone from all those years spent fucking around with drums in high school, and he has way too much confidence he doesn’t know where to place. For this job, he probably just needs a good push in the right direction.

He is, after all, his mother’s son.

The urn shines a brilliant gold in between the tiny red candles. Seongwu breathes in, then out, eyes blinking.

“I’ll be happy,” Seongwu whispers to her. “And I’ll try my best.”

 

 

~O~

 

 

Daniel’s got a job. Seongwu’s got a new job. They’re both busy.

Seongwu’s twenty-six years old, and it’s only starting to sink in that things aren’t always going to stay the same for any longer than he wanted. He’s not exactly _miserable_ , but he still is. You know. A little.

“Unhappy?” Yoon Jisung, his co-singer, prompts one morning, when it’s too dark out that it can still be called nighttime.

“No, hyung,” Seongwu answers sleepily. It’s probably not that. Happiness and optimism, for him, are boundless—Seongwu hoists them up when the bad days come, like a shield. He doesn’t think he’d ever run out of them, not even then in the past when he went through a stretch of weeks where everything wasn’t going the way he wanted. Tucked in a special shelf in his mind, he’ll just stand on his toes and hold his hand out for them.

(There are just days, though, that they’re not within reach. Just some days.)

“I’ve been to your flat with Minhyun-ssi,” Jisung drunkenly says. “And it’s helluva lot nicer than the shithole I’m in. Do you wanna come visit?”

“No.”

“Good answer.” Jisung laughs. “So it’s not the place. And it’s not the job?” At Seongwu’s shake of the head, he continues, “You have sex on the regular?”

Seongwu throws up his thumb as he finishes his beer.

“It’s just the discontent talking,” Jisung notes with finality. “We’ve all been there, hotshot. It’ll come around.”

In a few weeks, it doesn’t really come around, and the empty feeling grows overwhelming, almost incapacitating.

Seongwu sighs softly in defeat.

 

~O~

 

“Is there something wrong?”

Seongwu freezes from buckling his belt, rendered immobile from the sudden torrent of words that wanted to escape from his mouth. He knows he’s been quiet for most of the night, and of course Daniel, ever the clairvoyant when it comes to Seongwu’s feelings, would find it odd. And it’s their first night together in what seems like months.

It should be a fun night, by all means. Seongwu shouldn’t act like somebody’s just died.

But.

Seongwu _aches_.

“Do you ever think about me?” Seongwu says.

Daniel stares up at him. From this distance, Seongwu can see Daniel’s abs glistening with cum. It looks weird and funny on him, but Seongwu’s stomach does a wild flip instead. 

“Me?” Daniel asks. “About you?”

“Yeah.” Seongwu shrugs, going for causal, though he knows it’s way too late.  

“Of course,” Daniel answers simply. “Every day.” His eyes are brighter than usual. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you think about me?”

Seongwu inhales deeply, letting the warmth of the room fill the void. “Yeah,” he whispers.

Daniel looks shell-shocked, and the expression confuses Seongwu. It seems pretty obvious to him, with the way things were going.

It’s probably been going on for the longest time, and Seongwu had to be basically told by a notice from the phone company slid under his door. Maybe Daniel is an idiot. Maybe they’re both idiots.  

“Can I call you ‘hyung’?” Daniel suddenly says.

Seongwu nibbles at his lower lip. It’s now or never. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Okay.” Daniel smiles. He reaches out for him.

Seongwu realizes what he’s taken for granted when he crawls up to bed. Nights are different when he’s alone back in his room, cold yet comfortable, waiting to fall asleep and to dream of something. It’s hot being under the covers again, and Daniel’s rough hand is sweltering on his palm. But they’re things, _sensations_ , that Seongwu discovers he’d rather have than without.

“This wasn’t how I pictured things would go,” Seongwu confesses to the ceiling. He laughs a little. “I fucked up.”

Daniel grins with him. Always ready to share the blame, he says, “Me too.”

This time, Seongwu’s the one who scooches closer. He squeezes Daniel’s hand, just because.

“What brought this on?”

“Hmm?”

“You know.” Daniel stares down at his hand, looking a tiny bit embarrassed. “I wasn’t really expecting you to… I wasn’t exactly waiting for you, you know? I just thought I was feeling this on my own. So… I’m surprised.”

Seongwu is, too. He’s not sure at which degree of acceptance he already is, just that he knows there is an odd ache in him, a mixture of longing and something else deep.

Perhaps it’s been a long time coming. Fucking around always leads to fucking up, at some point.

He tries to remember why he’s been doing this, all along. He tries to picture himself in the same world he used to inhabit. Of waking up at somebody else’s apartment every once in a while. Of leaving before dawn breaks, before breakfast. For a long time, it used to be fun.

Seongwu promised to be happy.

He wasn’t supposed to get all downcast, was he? If he is, then what’s the point?

Seongwu’s chest grows sore and tight. “I’m a little lonely,” he mumbles.

Daniel offers him a smile. It’s a new kind. “I know,” he whispers back. “I am a little, too.”

“Oh.”

“Will you be with me?”

Seongwu exhales easily than he ever has, “Alright.”

Their noses touch, and they keep their hearts close.

 

 

~O~

 

 

They always meet up during Friday nights so they could walk home together, Daniel taking in the nighttime crowd while Seongwu drags his bike with them. They don’t touch so much, only when the sidewalk becomes narrow and their fingers bump against each other.

“A few months ago and you’d be bitching about walking,” Daniel joshes, smiling wide. He’s already taken off his blazer, and the starchiness of his polo shirt makes Seongwu want to mess with it.

But Seongwu holds back. He’s done some growing up, and he’s proud of that. Setting a good example, and whatever.

He then spots a stall selling fish cakes, and he buys four sticks for himself and Daniel. “Just got my paycheck today,” he announces as he dips one stick into a container of sauce and munches on two cakes at a time.

He’s not altogether sure what happened, but then, he's pressing his whole body against Daniel as he tries to plant a kiss onto the younger boy’s cheek. He lets his lips linger for as long as he can, and consequently gets a tiny bit of sauce on Daniel’s shirt collar.

Seongwu has really done some growing up. Mostly.

“Jeez, hyung,” Daniel mutters, taking out a handkerchief and wiping the sauce off in vain. His cheeks are beet red, and Seongwu counts the whole thing a win by a landslide.

Daniel laughs at an inane joke Seongwu makes about the younger's shirt, and he wonders if it's alright to wish for things to stay like this. For now, he secretly hopes.

Their rented place is not that far from here, and mostly, Seongwu feels a lot braver.

 


End file.
